


Access Point

by Cuda (Scylla)



Category: Supernatural, Superwho - Fandom, Superwood - Fandom, Torchwood
Genre: Frottage, Kissing, M/M, Rimming, The Many Deaths of Jack Harkness, sex in heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 00:53:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2753513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla/pseuds/Cuda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the Harkstiel Holiday Advent. Jack's dead, and Castiel's come to keep him company. He won't remember any of this (probably), at least he never has before, but Jack's special circumstances have made his Heaven rather unusual. Not that he believes in Heaven. Because he totally doesn't. Except when he totally does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Access Point

"Where am I?" Jack asked warily.

"Heaven," Castiel replied.

They stood together at the altar of an ancient church. Wrist-thick candles clustered in impossible numbers, making islands of light on the windowsills and rows along the polished floorboards. The entire sanctuary was done in wood, like something from a Celtic television series. Support pillars fashioned of whole trees rose to the eaves, and burnished panels of honey oak lined the walls. 

"Heaven is a fire hazard," Jack observed. Castiel gave him a wan smile.

"This is a part of your Heaven," Castiel said, "I'm real, but everything else here is a construct from your mind." His eyes narrowed on Jack, as if he could telegraph a thought by staring, but Jack was already turning away.

He wasn't even sure he believed in Heaven, or God, or any of the theological quandaries Castiel tossed on his doorstep when they met. But they had hundreds, thousands of conversations backlogged about this very thing, and Jack knew from Castiel's descriptions that Heaven was a thing he made for himself. A church filled with candles was not it. 

Of all the things Jack could conjure for himself as ideals of Heaven, churches were far from Paradise. Churches, times past, had been frequent cause of his suffering. He checked it out anyway, stepping around the candles that gave heat without burning his skin. His fingers slid across the paneled walls; the pillars worn to satin by thousands and thousands of hands. Except they hadn't been of course, because they weren't real. 

The front door opened onto a starless void. When Jack reached into it, he felt nothing. When he walked into it, it spat him out again into the sanctuary.

Castiel waited, silent, by the altar. He watched Jack with troubled eyes. Finally, curiosity exhausted and frustration mounting, Jack returned to him. "We've done this before, you know," Castiel said, "countless times. Sometimes here. But you never remember."

"What's different about this time?" Jack asked, stomach souring with unease.

"Absolutely nothing," Castiel replied, "but the manner in which you came."

"Which is?"

Castiel chinned up, drawing courage around him like a cloak. Jack knew it was bad, then. Very, very bad. "You've been immolated. It's good that you don't remember - although you will when your brain forms enough. Your ship exploded, although you were ash long before that." He looked down, swallowed, and when he met Jack's eyes again, he added, "I was too late."

Jack remembered coming to consciousness once, with a still-forming skin. He remembered the rawness of new nerves, exposed and firing pain at him past the edge of lunacy. He closed his eyes against the memory and took a deep breath. Put the fear away. There was no room for fear in a church filled with candles; this mysterious sanctuary he couldn't recall building. Death, he always remembered as nothingness. Blackness. Once there'd been a hungry thing hunting him, but now it was just always the same oblivion. So what was this?

"Did you make this place for me?" Jack asked.

Castiel paused, then shook his head. "I can't manipulate this place like that, Jack." He was adamant. "You made it yourself. But… this is the only place I can access without you," he added thoughtfully, "I think that's meaningful."

Jack snatched the new piece of information, twisting it over in his mind like a Rubik's cube. "I built you an access point?"

"You somehow… 'encrypted' your Heaven from intruders," Castiel's fingers curled into air quotes, "Over the years, Ash has worked extensively to break in here. But you're the key. Without your presence and permission, he's never been able to enter."

"Except you," Jack murmured, wondering who 'Ash' was.

Castiel nodded. "Except me," he agreed, "and only here."

Jack gestured back to the open door, where the black void still lingered. "Why can't I get out of here, then, if this is my Heaven?"

Castiel shrugged. "Sometimes you can't. A side effect of how much you compartmentalize your thoughts. Of living so long and having so much to hide, even from yourself."

Anger welled up at the casual way Castiel said it. Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and strode away. "If there's an access point for you, there's one for Ianto and Greg and Gwen."

Castiel shook his head. "I don't think it's about love, Jack."

Jack waved at the candles. "No?" He demanded, half a sob.

Castiel smiled. "This is certainly romantic, and you are sentimental about—"

"Don't," Jack said sharply, cutting off the words with a slash of his hand. He didn't want an analysis. Moreover, he didn't want it in Castiel's voice. "Tell me what you think this is."

"You don't trust this place," Castiel said sadly, looking away, "but you believe I understand it. So when the inevitable happens, and someone locks your consciousness away in here," he spread his hands to take in the four softly glowing walls, "you gave me a path to you. This is trust in me."

"Then why can't you get—"

Castiel's eyes slid to him. "—YOU believe I could if I needed to," he replied, cutting Jack off, and the candles around them sizzled and spat, "In all these years, I've never broken a lock you didn't ask me to. Do you think your death changes anything?"

Jack went cool with adrenaline as the words processed. He tipped his head back, blinking away an emotional rush.

"You'd let them in if you thought you could stay," Castiel said quietly.

Jack laughed, rooted to the spot, neck straining as he struggled with himself. "Oh, Castiel," he said, soft, and this time - because it was Heaven - he didn't put it away. Didn't separate what he felt from what he needed to do. Chose - for the length of a breath in his interminable life - to believe in something larger than himself. 

He relaxed in a rush, and reached out to the altar, fingertips sliding across the warm wood as he crossed to Castiel. "Would it get me in trouble if I wanted to try this out?" He knocked on the hard surface and smiled.

Castiel huffed, smile growing incredulous as he watched. "This is your Heaven, Jack. It has whatever meaning you give it." Unexpectedly, he leaned in, curling his head around Jack's to murmur in his ear, "Making love is sacred, Jack. It could never be profane."

Jack exhaled into Castiel's hair, a little shakier than he'd like, and kissed the top of his neck. "Who said anything about that?"

Castiel breathed against Jack's ear. "Didn't you?"

They kissed then, unhurried, tasting one another's parted mouths like nipping into smooth, ripe apricots. Jack caught the back of Castiel's head with a tenderness that burned him from the inside, made him glow like the candles that surrounded them. He could have kissed Castiel forever. This moment was peace and bliss and he took it for himself without shame even if it might not be real.

Taking the initiative, Jack opened Castiel's coat and exposed skin to the air, touching the nude parts of him as he peeled layers of clothing away. He tossed them all on the altar, his own greatcoat last of all (for even here in Heaven, he'd brought along his coat somehow). Jack helped Castiel onto the altar and joined him, kneeling over the angel's lap in the nest of clothes. Castiel's hands searched him, teasing the insides of elbows, wrists, and the impossibly soft skin below Jack's navel. He rolled Jack over and kissed the hot skin above his ass from hip to hip until he shuddered. The angel's mouth burned him, urging him to let go as Castiel licked deep into him. He felt too full, too stretched, in ways that had nothing to do with his body or the slick fingers sliding inside him.

They came together at last, Castiel nested between Jack's thighs and Jack's hand wrapped around them both. Jack could feel time running out. Even while the pleasure soared, he could feel the candles growing a little colder, their light a little dimmer, outweighed by the vast chill dark of space. Castiel's heat slid against his own in a slick, endless thrust, and he knew he'd suffocate almost as soon as he came back to life. And again and again, as long as he hung there surrounded by the dust and detritus of his ruined ship. 

"I HAVE you, Jack," Castiel moaned against his shoulder, "I'm WITH you." The power behind the words vibrated them both. Jack breathed out and let his head fall back, just off the edge of the altar.

"Yeah, Castiel," he gasped, and Castiel nipped at the bend of his exposed throat as he came, "yeah, I know."

Then the pain roared into him, pain of a skin not fully formed, and Jack remembered flashing lights and wailing klaxons. He curled into Castiel, screaming agony against his chest.

"When you're there," Castiel grated through his teeth, holding Jack in a rictus grip, "when you leave, I'll be with you. I promise, Jack."

The candles blew out, and the cold blew in, but Castiel was warm around him. 

For a little while longer, anyway, he could afford to believe.


End file.
